After reaching nine consecutive finals, last year was the first time Leicester had not featured at Twickenham since 2004, but they were simply blown away on this occasion by a rampant Bath side, who even managed to cope with briefly going down to 13 men late in the first half.

Bath made a flying start, the electric Jonathan Joseph finding space and feeding Banahan to go over in the left corner as early as the second minute.

Freddie Burns erred twice from the tee before sending a third kick through to get Leicester on the board, but in the 25th minute Joseph and Banahan combined for a second time as the wing doubled his tally.

Bath had demolished Leicester 45-0 on home turf in the regular season, and it looked as though a repeat could be on the cards when Eastmond's try made it 21-3 with only half an hour played.

Leicester responded well and incessant pressure saw Anthony Watson and Leroy Houston both sin-binned in quick succession, before Youngs crashed over on the stroke of half-time to give the visitors hope heading into the interval.

Burns and Tommy Bell both missed penalties early in the second half for Leicester, and they were left to rue that profligacy when Stringer - set to depart for Sale Sharks at the end of the season - benefited from Francois Louw's superb offload to score.

As Leicester became ragged, Bath were able to pick off their opponents at will and Ford, Banahan and Watson all went over in the final 12 minutes to cap a second chastening defeat for the Tigers at The Rec this season.